District Covered :- 5 Village / Gram Panchayats in Sehore Madhya Pradesh
Supported by:-National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Madhya Pradesh Regional Office
In past 30 – 40 years government and market have promoted agriculture dependent on high yielding varieties of seeds, hazardous pesticides, chemical fertilizers and costly inputs. Their long-term effect on soil health, water quality and other environmental concerns like biodiversity and biotic flora has complicated the health and human existence problem.
Moreover costly agri-inputs have made agriculture unaviable for small landholders who form 80% of farming community in the country. With this understanding SVSS is working with small and marginal farmers promoting Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture (LEISA) practices.

During the Reporting period the 256 small and marginal farmers have reclaimed 8.71 acres of agriculture land by biological method. They used green manure cultivation and decomposed it into the soil. Some farmers did it by decomposing Wheat/Soyabean straw or cow-dung. 196 of them have taken 2 crop on the treated and. 1200 small and marginal farmers in Sehore block of Sehore have adopted LEISA practices. These practices include use of compost,neem (Azadirachta Indica) cake, context specific non-terminator seeds, micro-nutrients and Integrated Pest Management techniques like use of neem oil, amrit pani (cow urine detection).Practices like mix cropping, inter-cropping, reduced seed rate and crop rotation are also adopted. Participatory Varietal Selection and Promotion (PVSP) is one of the central interventions under the productivity enhancement activities of SVSS, it has been practiced for over a decade. Seeds of improved varieties of crop can increase production levels significantly. In the selected five villages of SVSS, the adoption of varieties is still not a common practice among farmers, especially in resource poor areas which is dominated by small and marginal farmers. To overcome these shortcomings, SVSS initiated participatory varietal Selection and promotion (PVSP) methodology. This is a systematic and participatory method that identifies the felt needs of the farmers for suitable crop varieties and provides them a basket of choice of varieties. Farmers test the seeds under their own management practices for a couple of years against the performances of their existing varieties. This process results in identification of “farmer Preferred” varieties which is then multiplied and distributed to a wide range of farmers of that cluster through a localized seed production and distribution system.
The benefits of the varietal replacement through PVSP method have been studied several times through external study. Each of them have confirmed significant improvement in the productivity within the range of 25-50% due to change in variety while the input costs either remained constant or reduced. Besides productivity enhancement, the pvsp has helped to diversify the varieties given, thus reducing the risk of pests and diseases. The adoption rate through this method is found to be very fast and cost effective.
It is pity of our poor farmers that most of them do not get cheaper and improved variety of seeds. All over the country, including our project area, there is need to ensure adequate and timely supply of improved seeds. Under the initiative of NABARD, we have taken up seeds multiplication programme of improved variety of wheat, soyabean in our project area of Bilikisganj Cluster. Considering various factors and technical parameters, our farmers selected variety of JKKV University. In rabi 2012, our farmers have opted for seeds multiplication programme in 35 acres which would be sown by about 566 farmers in Khariff 2013. These seeds are duly certified and as they are produced by our own farmers, they would be much cheaper.

Development of local cadre of people (mainly youth) with handson training is another important strategy. Local people are recruited and their capacities developed as service providers,who go on to take leadership positions and become the backbone for SVSS’s Programme implementation.

Development of local cadre of people (mainly youth) with hands on training is another important strategy. We follow a systematic strategy for recruitment and training of the local people as service providers called the “village Resource Persons(VRPs)”. These VRPs gradually become backbone of the programme implementation in the local area. There is a systematic pathways followed for the VRPs to absorb responsibilities from the professional staff. There are 5 VRPs across project area. Immediately after recruitment 7 days standard residential induction training followed by 3 days field exposure followed. And within one year of their joining VRPs undergo training on gender,institutions building, agriculture based livelihoods etc. Refresher training are conducted time to time on programme and technical issues based on the knowledge gaps and skill up gradation. On an average a VRP undergoes at least 8-10 training module both generic training and programmes related modules every year. Efforts are being made to introduce systems, so that community institutions/ beneficiary farmer can bear the cost of technical services provided by the VRPs.

The community Institutions that are groomed for the agriculture productivity enhancement programme at the village level include SHGs, activity based Livelihood Groups and Kishan clubs for general agriculture technology promotion, vegetables growers groups etc. The concept of lead farmers/ Achiever farmers is practiced to engage them as agents for dissemination of farmers preferred technologies developed through the method of farmer field Demonstration. The significant amount of resources and time are spent for the capacity building of the farmers for agriculture technology development and dissemination.